Woodstack

Did I mention we had the Tree Service in? I did. The last time we paid a professional arborist was in 2022 - and I still have one neat under-cover stack of 120-150cm logs from that venture. Up until then, we more-or-less relied on fallen branches to chop and send up the chimney. The negative thing about using random branches for firewood is that it is random - full of forks and twists and knots that make processing difficult. It's not really about the cost of chainsaw gas rather than buying coal from the creamery. It's not about costing my time either: firewood heats you twice - once in the chopping; once in the stove. And I don't need a gym subscription to develop my upper body with my splitting maul. But splitting awkward logs is a hazard - let me show you my shin scars. Indeed I tog up with the same PPE (boots, chaps, visor) for splitting wood as for firing up the chainsaw.

I had The B'ys from Glavey consolidate most of the ash-wood in a hape at the bottom of the haggard on the 7th July. They dumped a substantial pile of wood-chip next door. I've been processing the wood since that time. At not more than an hour or a tankful of chainsaw gas a day. Not every day: if it's wet I have indoor work - bloggin', baking, plongisme. Or tunnel work: watering and picking the beans and liberating butterflies. By the time I filled and capped off the stack shown above, I had ⅝ths [5ft x 4ft x 8ft] of a cord of ash wood against Winter 2027. That's just over 2 stere = 2 cu.m. for not-USA people.

The rest of the heap [I guess as much again] is now saw-cut to length and just needs to be split and stacked. And that's before I start in on the Scots pine which is heaped elsewhere . . . 2 days later:

There's no point in breaking your heart, your wrist or your axe reducing logs / lumps of Ash with too many branches. The fibres run every which way and don't yield to tonking with a splitting maul.  It's good to rise to a challenge - and you can sometimes make progress by turning or up-ending a log, But often not and dead ash will become habitat for something soon enough.